Session 16
Hardholme S3E16: The Rat King Chris (as Chris), Aurelae (Lauren), Ulrich (Eric), Chen (Brady), Nihilus (Caspar), and Root (Casey), Jespora (Becky). It’s May in Hardholme. The April Flowers are now in full bloom, and it is quite a sight to behold. Flowers of every conceivable color are growing on bushes, on trees, in bunches from the ground — it’s lovely. Chen is very excited about these new flowers and takes lots of cuttings. Aurelae summarizes the rat problem. They make a plan of action. They walk through the city of Hardholme on a bright, sunny afternoon. Aurelae summarizes the problem at hand: “Okay, Dexter was complaining about a rat problem. He continued to complain about it for weeks and weeks. Then, all of a sudden, there ‘is no rat problem’ and Dexter is acting...weird, to say the least. Now there are multiple complaints about a strong odor coming from Dexter’s house…” They decide to grab a meal and a drink at Elvish Delights as they discuss their plan of action further. They sit at the nicest, biggest table at Elvish Delights. It is long, and the chairs are ornate, and it sits on a slightly raised platform near a window. In the center of the restaurant is a beautiful tree that stretches up towards the tall windows on the ceiling. It’s not a wonder that two half-elves designed this place. It looks something similar to this, but with windows above: Nihilus mentions the Mirage that he caught on his last adventure, and asks Aurelae if she can train it. Aurelae is very excited for the opportunity, and Olivia is fascinated by the idea of yet another creature she could cook and eat. Aurelae sighs, says, “Yes, dear,” and adds Mirages to her hunting list. Mushrooms are next on their conversation list. They all discuss mushrooms for quite a while. Chen needs the hallucinogenic green mushrooms. Nihilus: “How many?” Chen: “A lot of them.” Root asks Nihilus if he could try growing the Kibble in the caves with his mushrooms. Nihilus thinks he almost certainly can, and promises to try. They eat delicious food and drink expertly made Simsum wine and talk the early afternoon away. All in all, it’s a lovely Saturday brunch. Nihilus presents Chen with a small package of the green mushrooms, which he also calls “Glowing Carrics”. Chen asks Olivia if he can use her kitchen briefly and experiments with making a tea with green mushrooms, parpar (rie root), and some other flowers, with the goal of making a mild hallucinogen to protect them from the influence of the Rat Leader, and possibly other types of psychic manipulation. He lets this most recent batch cool and bottles it. Ulrich volunteers to test the potion, and takes a long swig of Chen’s newest concoction. They walk towards Dexter’s place. Ulrich pulls out his Bag of Tricks, and pulls from it a weasel. The weasel isn’t very helpful, but is pretty cute and rides along on Ulrich’s shoulder. Aurelae gives the weasel scratches and it seems to like that. They arrive at Dexter’s house, and just kinda stand there… A neighbor approaches them and says she is concerned about the increasing rotting stench, and the noises coming from the house. All the windows of the house are blacked out, so they can’t see inside. Ulrich volunteers to go knock on the front door, but gets distracted by his hands and just stares at them. He can’t figure out why we call them “fingers” but we never really see these fingers “fing”. Ulrich feels compelled to repeat an activity over and over again. Ulrich then takes a few gold coins out of his pockets and counts them again and again, as if he is compelled to repeat this mundane activity over and over again. Is this the potion at work, or the Menga he smoked afterwards? Both? The others discuss what to do, and while they are turning in circles, Chen throws his hands up and goes and actually knocks. And knocks. And knocks again. Finally, Dexter cracks the door open, “Hey, what do you want?” Ulrich: “We’re here to take care of the rat problem.” Aurelae: “Ulrich! There IS no ‘rat problem’”. Chen: “Not doing this.” He pushes the door open. Dexter: “Hey! What’re you doing here?! You can’t just barge into my house!” They walk into a 10x10 foot room. There’s a chair. Not much else. Ulrich: “We’re here about a smell problem. Rules and regulations.” Nihilus: “It smells like death.” Dexter: “That cheese lady isn’t here IS SHE?” Aurelae, suppressing a laugh: “Nope. Nooooope she is definitely not here.” Dex: “Good. She’d BETTER not be. She thinks she’s better than us...” They confront Dexter about the smell. He balks. Nihilus uses his Helmet of Mind Reading on Dexter — “Oh god they can’t find the smell. No no no, can’t let them find the smell.” Root grabs Dexter and lifts him up, puts a hand on each shoulder and pushes him up against the wall: “Dexter. Look at us. You came before the council complaining about the rat problem. Now suddenly there is no problem. TELL US where are the rats???” Dexter: “There’s no problem, why would there be a problem? Rats are not the problem, rats are never a problem.” Root: “TELL US WHERE THE RATS ARE.” Dexter starts to sob softly. It’s pitiful. Root: “We understand this could be embarrassing. But the council and our friends are here to help you. Now show us where the god damned rats are.” Dexter: “They’re not always rats… sometimes they’re boxes…” Aurelae: “Dexter. You know what Fallynde said? She said she doesn’t believe that you will help us. Help us help you prove the Cheese Lady wrong Dexter!” Dex: “Okay. But you can’t look at it. Don’t...look at it.” Root feels sorry for Dexter and gives him a Raven Broach, and tells him this will give him some raven friends. It’s sweet. Dexter looks both flattered and suspicious. And off they go. To the rat room. Eyes down. Dexter opens the door, and it’s dark and dingy, with cobwebs everywhere. At the far end of the room, there it is. It’s a single barrel, just sitting there in an otherwise empty room. Ulrich has his sunglasses on, and looks directly at the barrel. Dexter: “Heh, I didn’t actually expect you to not look.” At this, they all look up and see the barrel. It’s...just a barrel. The barrel is empty. Ulrich suggests that we go into the next room, and walks towards the door on the other side of the room, behind the barrel. Root is suspicious, and casts a Paladin thing to detect evil. He detects a Fiend in this room, in the shape of a barrel. Dexter: “You shouldn’t have made it mad. Why did you make it mad?!” Dexter is trying to edge out of the room. Chen doesn’t hesitate and knocks him right out before he can run away. Chen is having none of anyone’s shit today. Ulrich thinks quickly and puts the dimensional shackles on Dexter before he regains consciousness. They quickly put the unconscious and shackled Dexter in the front room, away from the fiend barrel. It becomes apparent that they are in the middle room of the house. The front foyer is where Dexter is now, then this room, but behind the barrel is another door… it is closed, but they can hear scurrying and scratching coming from the back room… INITIATE COMBAT: Root attacks the barrel. He completely misses the stationary barrel in the center of the room, trips on a floorboard, stubs his toe, drops his weapon, and falls to the ground all in one fell swoop of a clumsy fall. Ulrich pulls out his flaming sword and swings at the barrel. As Ulrich hits the barrel the top of it elongates and morphs into a mouth with teeth and a long blue tongue. Kind of like one of those fire flowers from Mario that chomps at you as you jump past it. Ulrich is pissed and swings at it and SMASHES it (67 damage). His attack is so intense that it gives Chen advantage on his next turn. “You’re bottom of the barrel, BITCH.” He says as he dramatically takes his glasses off. More teeth grow until the entire inside of the barrel is filled with teeth. You do NOT want to fall into that barrel. Chen punches the barrel — a lot — and little bits of splinters are flying off of it. Jespora smacks the wooden fiend with her holy sword, but it somehow it continues to grow MORE teeth. Aurelae hears something behind her, and she slowly turns her head to look at the closed door her. It sounds like many tiny things are slamming themselves against the door. The door is actually buckling a little bit. She walks up the wall and as she does so says, “Hey guys… there’s something on the other side of this door here…” She then unleashes two radiant arrows to the barrel (44 dam). The barrel lashes out with it’s long, blue tongue at poor Root who is still floundering on the floor, but misses...all three times. The door to the other room is now bursting at the seams… Ulrich smashes the barrel again (57 damage). Nihilus, always thinking quickly, pulls out his portable hole and puts it right in front of the doorway that is seconds away from breaking. The door BURSTS open and dozens of THESE creatures pour out of the doorway and fall into the portable hole. They make weird screeching chicken like noises. And they SMELL. Chen pummels the barrel again and it just kinda falls over and the teeth retract and it shrinks into a pile of broken wood. Huh. Well that was anticlimactic. The “chickens” continue to pour out of the doorway and fall into the portable hole. Jespora gets a running start and leaps over Nihilus in the doorway, runs towards the portable hole, and casts thunder wave at the “chickens”. She hits ALL the “chickens” (7 damage). There is a HUGE thunder clap as well. The entire town is gonna know something is up now. Aurelae walks along the ceiling, stands above the hole, pulls out her Staff of Thunder and Lightning, and unleashes a wave of thunder and lightning into the hole and kills EVERYTHING in the hole (33 damage to ALL of them). The other room is filled with shit. Literal shit. A LOT OF SHIT. Piles upon piles of shit. Root valiantly leaps over the hole and charges into the room swinging, and kills 41 “chickens”. Nihilus casts haste on Root. Chen is just chillin, meditating. He’s Chenillin. Aurelae blasts the new layer of “chickens” in the hole (26 damage to all) and fries another group of them dead. She is really excited to bring these prizes back to Olivia to see what delicious meal she makes of them. Root flails around and kills the remaining “chickens” in the room, and the rest kill the remainder that fell into the top of the hole. Now all that remains is the problem of the giant piles of shit lol Nihilus agrees to give the dead “chickens”, now in his portable hole, to Olivia. Chen mentions something about the effects of his latest potion on Ulrich, so Nihilus decides to test out a theory. Nihilus casts Suggestion on Ulrich, and suggests that the best way to celebrate their victory is for him to hop around on one leg. Ulrich does not hop around on one leg. It seems that the tea that Ulrich drank from Chen gives him protection against mind control! Huzzah! Ulrich takes the shackles off of Dexter and he slowly comes to. “What happened? No no no no no what did you guys do???” He starts to run into the shit room, but Ulrich grabs him by the collar, but he slips away, runs into the shit room, falls to his knees and says, “I am king of nothing… I am king… of nothing…” He cries into his hands that are now coated in “chicken” shit. Root walks up to Dexter and gently pins the Raven pin on him. After a few seconds, a single, ethereal raven flies in and lands on Dexter’s shoulder. Ulrich places a hand on Dexter’s other shoulder: “You’re the Raven King, Dexter. You’re the Raven King.” Dexter looks at his new friend on his shoulder, and his sobs turn into small sniffles. He nods solemnly. “Yeah...you’re right…” Dexter then picks up some of the shit from the floor and lovingly rubs it into the feathers of the raven that landed on his shoulder. Chen is beyond perplexed and slightly horrified. He suggests, quietly, that maybe we leave… Dexter, softly, to the raven: “I’m not the king of nothing. I’m NOT the king of nothing…” He cries softly. “Thank you...thank you for showing me the true way.” Chen is done with this mess. He walks outside. The others follow. Outside there is a rather large crowd. A concerned citizen recognizes Ulrich: “Hey! That’s Councilor Ulrich! I’m concerned! You smell! Why do you smell like shit?!” Root tries to convince Dexter to let him clean up the shit. Dexter does not want help. There’s nothing to help with. Dexter really really reeeeeeaaaally likes the shit… Outside, Nihilus takes out his calligraphy kit and paints, in a very pretty script, “Ravenhold” across the top beam of Dexter’s front door. The crowd outside is clapping. They’re not sure why, but there they are, clapping for the 71st and Friends. Aurelae: “Do not worry friends! Your councilors have been hard at work here, and we have taken care of the problem! All is well.” *clapping intensifies* FUN FACT: Dexters House is right next to Grey Farms… hmmm… didn’t you hear something about the “Striding 59th” taking care of that chicken problem? Well shit. RIP Fenrir. **END**